The continuous watchfulness now essential to success in beekeeping
has become necessary as a result of the appearance of obstacles
and complications not remotely anticipated in previous decades.

Less than half a century ago, a swarm of bees in a box would yield
a sufficient return to satisfy its owner, and the bee-keeping methods
which descended from father to son, almost as folklore, constituted
the applied science of apiary management. For foul brood had
not yet reached the Mississippi Valley and the beekeeper did not
have to keep himself prepared to meet it.

By 1865 the disease was known in one place in Iowa and had
become well established in parts of the eastern states.

By 1896, then, the serious nature of American Foul Brood had
made itself well known and the beekeepers of several localities had
become weary of trying to fight its ravages without the .assistance
of neighbors with heavily infected apiaries. A concerted movement
for legal protection began to assert itself and in 1897 the legislature
passed the first apiary inspection law. The governor appointed
Mr. N. E. France, inspector, and the beekeepers began to look for
a speedy eradication of bee diseases from the confines of Wisconsin.

Now (1918) it is known to occur in nearly every
county from Barron and Langlade on the north to the southern
border of the state. In general, its wide distribution can be definitely
traced to the transportation of diseased swarms, hives, or
combs from one locality to another and even its local distribution
seems to be largely of the same nature.

Wisconsin. Dept. of Agriculture. (1918). Biennial Report

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